The court’s conservative majority did not want to know about affirmative action

read more: US Court: Education may no longer ‘affirmatively’ discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the ruling, upheld an earlier ruling in which a white student at the University of California successfully challenged his rejection. At the time, four justices advocated affirmative action as a remedy against discrimination in society. But a five-judge majority found that there was insufficient reason to allow discrimination based on appearance.

One of them, he wrote, suggested “a shapeless idea of ​​injustice that can go indefinitely into the past.” He said racial profiling cannot be justified as “punishing a few who are not held accountable for injustices believed to have been suffered by those who benefited from inclusion programs” — a move that implied affirmative action.

“Many universities have long mistakenly concluded that the pillar of an individual’s identity is not the obstacles they have overcome, the skills they have acquired, or the lessons they have learned, but the color of their skin,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote.

As a result, the basic distinction between conservative and progressive views on inequality in society has been given an ambiguous formulation in the court’s decision. Conservative majorities especially don’t want to know about structural discrimination against black Americans—affirmative action is already prohibited in states where they are relatively underrepresented in higher education and, in part because of it, are far behind in lifetime income. He sees only individual discrimination to ‘overcome barriers’, and universities are still allowed by the courts to take those qualities into account.

Stubbornly divided

At the other end of the spectrum, progressive politicians and lobby groups point to an even more substantial disadvantage for African Americans in society. Dismissing the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “This Court, in a stubbornly segregated society, makes the overriding rule of color blindness a constitutional principle in which race has always played a central role.”

In a response, Barack and his wife Michelle Obama expressed regret at the ruling. Affirmative action, the former president wrote, “has made generations of students, including Michelle’s and mine, feel included.” Michelle Obama wrote: “Too often we accept that money, power and privilege are perfectly justifiable concrete actions, and kids like me are expected to compete on a far-from-level playing field.”

President Biden called on universities to be diligent in their pursuit of diversity in their student populations. “What I am proposing is a new standard in which the governing board takes into account the problems that the student overcomes before reporting to a pool of applicants with sufficient qualifications.” Biden came very close to the letter of the court’s ruling, but far from it in spirit.